SPATIO-TEMPORAL BEAM TAILORED FIBRE LASERS FOR ENERGY RESILIENT MANUFACTURING

这一创新方案寻求将基于激光的制造的能效和速度提高十倍。利用光纤通信技术的最新进展，我们将开发新一代光纤激光器，提供前所未有的同时控制输出光束的空间、时间和偏振特性的水平。这将使机械师能够针对特定的光：物质相互作用优化激光，并首次最大限度地提高基于激光的材料加工中每个脉冲的效率，从而实现制造控制和新型低能源制造工艺的阶段性变化。我们认为，相对于当今制造中使用的当前一代光纤激光器(这种激光器本身的效率已经比其他二极管泵浦的固态激光器高出至少2倍，比激光机房中仍在使用的其他激光技术(例如闪光灯泵浦的光纤激光器)高出10倍以上)，许多激光工艺的能耗应该可以降低多少磁级。重要的是，启用的新控制功能还应允许基于激光的技术取代目前用于某些高价值制造任务的能源效率极低的机械工艺，特别是超细抛光，这将是我们将与剑桥大学的项目合作伙伴合作开展的应用工作的主要重点。激光能够在高峰值和平均功率下对光束参数进行如此精确的控制，在工业激光处理之外的许多应用领域具有潜在的颠覆性--特别是在传感、成像、医学、国防和高能物理领域，随着项目的发展，我们将寻求在这些领域利用我们的技术的机会。

This innovative proposal seeks a ten-fold improvement in the energy efficiency and speed of laser based manufacturing. Exploiting the most recent advances in optical fibre communication technology we will develop a new generation of fibre lasers offering unprecedented levels of simultaneous control of the spatial, temporal and polarisation properties of the output beam. This will allow machinists to optimise the laser for particular light:matter interactions and to maximise the efficiency of each pulse in laser-based materials processing for the first time, enabling a step-change in manufacturing control and novel low-energy manufacturing processes. We believe that order of magnitide reductions in energy usage should be possible for many laser processes relative to the current generation of fibre lasers used in manufacturing today, (which themselves are already at least x2 more efficient than other diode-pumped solid-state lasers, and more than x10 more efficient than other laser technologies still in use in laser machine shops (e.g. flash-lamp pumped YAGs)). Importantly, the new control functionalities enabled should also allow laser based techniques to replace highly energy-inefficient mechanical processes currently used for certain high value manufacturing tasks and in particular in ultrafine polishing which will represent the primary focus of the application work that we will undertake in collaboration with our project partners at Cambridge University.Lasers offering such exquiste control of the beam parameters at high peak and average powers, have the potential to be disruptive in a number of application spaces beyond industrial laser processing - in particular in sensing, imaging, medicine, defence and high energy physics and we will look to investigate opportunities to exploit our technology in these areas as the project evolves.